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micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
Archives
Sites Holmquist trys to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist reads on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) As'ad AbuKhalil |
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Wedding death It didn't take the men and women who keep us safe and free in Afghanistan over a year to kill the celebrants as it did in Iraq. On the other hand, the brave fighting men and women in Iraq may have gotten more target practice since they did more than merely drop a bomb. I would call it even, by that standard. However, in light of how the July 1, 2002 total represented a 42% decrease in the number of wedding goers killed compared to a similar incident that took place less than seven months earlier, it appears like the boys and girls in Afghanistan were getting lazy while our troops in Iraq were just warming up and hopefully will be able to improve upon their score. Advantage Iraq! Tuesday, May 18, 2004
(Occupation) Notes for May 18, 2004 I'm certainly not coming out for the U.S. military deciding who gets to have the cool weapons and who doesn't, but if that is going to be the policy of the U.S., as many people apparently ostensibly want it to be, it makes absolutely no sense to not prioritize controlling such weapons. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp and yet I suspect that it has never crossed the minds of most supporters of the "war on terror," people who, as sad as this might be, will get all worked up in an illogical manner whenever someone in power tells them to and then, just as quickly, will never give the "threat" a second thought once they are no longer told to fear it. *** On a less serious note, because it doesn't have a direct impact on the good Americans, Nigel Morris writes in the May 13 edition of The Independent: The number of babies born deformed and children suffering leukaemia have soared because of the "deadly legacy" of depleted uranium shells used by British and American forces in Iraq, human rights campaigners claimed yesterday.Glad this doesn't make the news in land of the free and the home of the brave. I say these Iraqis should be thankful they are alive. *** Monday, May 17, 2004
Retraction I've ridiculed the idea that Saddam's now deposed regime posed a threat to the United States, but I stand corrected. Deputy Director for Coalition Operations Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt explained today we are fighting in Iraq against the threat that with more production of chemical weapons and better training those who oppose the U.S. occupation could harm occupation forces.. How I managed to sleep at night while I opposed dealing with this deadly threat to our very lives is beyond me. This shit is so goddamn funny I hope the cautionary words coming from Blix and Rummy turn out to be misplaced. It would be great to hear Bush try to defend this and now claim that he is worried... until it becomes clear that people are buying it. Sunday, May 16, 2004
In an article from the May 24 issue of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh writes, "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror." Note this graf: Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone." The Pentagon has issued a denial. *** Instead, I suggest Judgment (André van Heerden, 2001), an end times movie with Corbin Bernsen and Mr. T where we find out that One Nation Earth is able to track everybody but doesn't think there's anything odd about a beat-up late 1980s passenger van being parked near a prominent government building. Saturday, May 15, 2004
"As much as $130 billion may have been lost due to corruption in World Bank loans, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Thursday," Harry Dunphy of the AP writes in a May 13 story. "In a speech at the start of hearings on the multilateral development banks, [Senator Richard]Lugar quoted expert estimates that between $26 billion and $130 billion in bank loans has been misused since 1946, when the organization started lending." Friday, May 14, 2004
My advice? Go here and download Bob Odenkirk's Life on Mars. After watching that enjoy some Sonic Youth. (Be really cool and run more than one window and create a hybrid of joy.) Thursday, May 13, 2004
Bringing out the best in America Hard times always bring out the best in this great country of ours. The horrific murder of Nick Berg has lead to Americans looking honesty and intelligently at "their" government's role in the world. Similarly the revelation that the public may not have seen the worst of the photos showing Uncle Sam's finest abusing Iraqis has brought out a wave of interest in keeping the U.S. government in check. Why just today on I saw, in an apparent response to this New York Times article, Linda Vester justify "harsh" interrogation techniques on the basis of "September 11." Vester even showed us a photo from that day. |
